Back to the Streets
by jdavis80
Summary: Brian gets himself back into street racing completely on accident. After a rough start, he must ask his wealthy friend for help defeating his new competition.


As Brian lifted the hood of his blue R34 GT-R, he was reminded of his days of street racing 15 years before. He remembered driving his green Mitsubishi Eclipse in his first race and the embarrassment that followed as Dom picked apart his poor driving piece by piece. He remembered the sound of the twin-turbo RB26 engine in his silver 1999 Skyline GT-R when he raced and beat a Supra going airborne over a bridge. He missed it, the sounds, the smells, the adrenaline rush. Yearning for the excitement of driving at the limit like he had in his past, Brian closed the hood and got in. As he pressed the clutch and turned the key, it all started to come back to him. He slipped the GT-R's transmission into first and left the garage. Still shaking the dust off of his heel-toe downshifting skills, Brian slowed for a red light. As he approached the nearly empty intersection, he could hear the unmistakable rumble of a rotary engine. He turned his head to see a red Mazda FD RX-7 roll up next to him on his left. As he looked up from the car, he locked eyes with the driver, a man in his early twenties wearing a red bandana with an almost menacing grin on his face. The man in the bandana revved his engine and Brian nodded. The light turned green. The Mazda spun his tires, struggling to put power to the asphalt. Meanwhile, Brian launched his all-wheel-drive Nissan without an issue. Brian soon gained a large lead, but the high-revving RX-7 began to close the gap. In the distance, Brian could see the road curving to the left. The RX-7 continued to close the gap between the cars until he caught Brian's Skyline just as the two entered the turn. Brian slowed his car, downshifting from fourth gear to third, while the man in the Mazda tried to pass him on the inside, still hard on the accelerator. The front tires of the lightweight sports car began to lose traction. He backed off of the accelerator, but not in time to prevent his car from sliding up toward Brian's GT-R. Brian, having aimed his car for the apex of the turn, was headed right for the out-of-control RX-7. Both drivers slammed on their brakes, desperately trying to avoid a collision. The passenger's door of the Mazda met the GT-R's front bumper, upsetting the GT-R and sending both sliding into the guardrail on the outside of the turn. Brian closed his eyes and squeezed the steering wheel with white knuckles until the two cars came screeching to a halt. Brian opened his eyes, looking down at himself, and realized that he wasn't badly injured, despite the GT-R's complete lack of modern safety features. He looked over the hood of his mangled car to see the man in the red bandana crawling out of his vehicle. Brian pulled the handle of his door only to realize that he wouldn't be able to open it due to the impact with the guardrail. He struggled to remove his seatbelt, the only safety feature spared in the pursuit of weight reduction in his car. He got it off and climbed out of the window to find the man in the red bandana lying on the ground between the two cars. "You okay, man?" Brian yelled as the man tried to stand up. He received no response. The man finally made it to his feet and looked at Brian, his grin now replaced with a grimace of pain and anger. "I hope you've got money for an 11-second car sitting around", the man mumbled. Surprised at what he was hearing, Brian paused. "What would I need that for? You hit me, so you're the one who better have money for another car.", Brian exclaimed. "You lost. You owe me a car.", the man replied. Brian, now clearly infuriated, restated his point. "You hit me. It's your fault. You owe me a car.", he said, holding back his anger to the best of his abilities. A smirk appeared on the man's face. "Why don't we just settle this the easy way? I'll beat you again and you'll pay for my car." he said, holding back a smile. Brian nodded. "Alright, two weeks?" Brian asked, amused by the man's overconfidence. "One", the man said firmly. "Fine, be ready to pay up." Brian said as he turned back to his GT-R to remove the license plate and VIN tags. "You've got tags on a race car?" the man said, laughing. "I'm kinda new to the whole racing thing" Brian replied. "Better have your money ready, you don't stand a chance" the man said as he dialed his phone, calling for a ride. Brian, having forgot his phone, decided to walk home rather than ask a favor of the man in the red bandana. As he walked away from the cars, he could hear sirens. Someone had reported the accident. He picked up his pace and reached the intersection where the race began as an ambulance and a police car sped by. When he finally got home, he immediately started searching for his phone. When he found it in the garage where he had his GT-R parked, he called his friend Roger. Roger, a professional racecar driver, owned Brian's dream car, a red Porsche Carrera GT. After explaining his situation to Roger, he asked if he had anything that he could borrow for one race. After a long pause, Roger spoke. "I know how much you love the Carrera, so I guess I'll let you borrow it. Plus, what kind of friend would I be if I sent you to a race in a slow car?", Roger said in a surprisingly cheerful tone. Brian thanked him and met Roger the next day to take the car. He agreed not to modify it in any way outside of changing wheels and tires to something more suitable for the race, as it was a collector car. Brian decided to go ahead and put a different set of lighter wheels and wider, softer tires on the rear of the Porsche. The week passed slowly as Brian waited for the day to come. He called his friend Dom, told him about his situation, and asked for any advice for race day. Dom warned him about the clutch on the Carrera that was rumored to be troublesome when taking off. Finally, it was race day. Brian returned to the spot where he had first seen the red RX-7 and waited. After a few minutes of sitting at the dead intersection, he decided to pull into an empty parking lot on one of the corners. Just as he came to a stop in the lot, he saw a Toyota Supra roll up to the stoplight. Without stopping for the red light, the red Toyota turned and entered the lot, coming to a halt next to Brian. Brian climbed out of the Carrera to take a look at what the man had brought to race. He noticed that the Supra had a set of drag radials on the rear. Just as he did, a pack of about 10 red cars followed a black Pagani Zonda F into the lot. Awestruck, Brian stared at the rare supercar. It was completely blacked out, aside from thin red stripe down the side and around the edge of each wheel. He thought that it must be the leader of the gang. A man in a black suit emerged from the car and stood, looking in Brian's direction, but Brian couldn't tell if he was looking at him or not. The man spoke softly. "Racing a collector's car, I see.", he said in a low, stern tone. "That's right", Brian said, without hesitation. "You seem a little too confident for a man who is about to make a fool of himself.", the man replied in a slightly louder voice. Making a motion toward the Supra, he continued, "There's a very slim chance you've done anything at all to that car besides swap out the wheels and tires so you don't hurt the originals. There's not a stock part underneath the shell of that Supra." He laughed as Brian looked down at the Porsche. "I guess we'll see.", Brian stated confidently. "Let's do this then!", the man with the Supra yelled. Brian sat down in the Carrera and waited for the Supra to pull out of the lot. As the Supra left the lot with a couple of the cars from the pack, a familiar black Dodge Charger pulled in. Brian knew immediately that it was Dom. "Don't let him prep, those tires grip when they're hot. Go get 'em brother, I'll be waiting at the end to watch you win.", he said before slowly exiting the lot and following the group of red cars to the end of the straight stretch of road. Brian drove to the stoplight and stopped next to the Supra piloted by the man in the red bandana. They both revved their engines, and Brian noticed the whistle and flutter of a sizable turbocharger. "No prep?", Brian yelled to the man behind the wheel of the Supra. "No prep!" he replied, smiling. In that moment, Brian gained a new level of confidence knowing that the man in the Supra just made a huge mistake. "A real driver knows exactly what's in his car", he mumbled. The light turned green. Brian, finessing the Carrera's clutch, got off of the line with only slight wheelspin. The man in the red bandana, however, greatly overestimated the ability of the Supra's tires to grip when cold and spun them badly. Brian buried his foot into the floor, not letting up, even to shift. He glanced in the mirror to see the Supra just a few car-lengths behind him and gaining ground. He shifted into fourth, accelerator still pinned to the floorboard. He could see a red car sitting on the other side of the median ahead. The Supra kept gaining. Brian shifted into fifth. As he did, he could see the nose of the Supra next to him. They passed the red car. The Supra fell back and Brian lifted his foot from the accelerator. Looking down at the speedometer, he noticed that he was going much faster than he had in his R34 GT-R the week before. He looked up and saw the turn. He braked hard. The Porsche lost traction completely, having no electronic stability control system. He slid into the guardrail, the Carrera collapsing into itself. The car came to a stop in two sections. Brian couldn't see or hear anything. He could feel an intense heat behind him, though, and smelled smoke. He was trapped. The car was engulfed in flames. He began to think about his family as he felt an immense pressure on his left arm. He felt a sharp pain in his shoulder as something tugged his arm. After what felt like hours, the pain in his shoulder subsided and he could feel warm asphalt on his back. While not comforting to the back of his head, the asphalt felt like heaven to him. He tried to open his eyes to see what was going on around him. With his vision blurry, he could see faint outline of a person in a dark shirt leaning over him. Through the ringing in his ears, he thought he could hear the sound of someone yelling. Pulling a bottle of water from his back pocket, Dom opened Brian's eyes with his fingers and poured the water in them, rinsing out the dirt and debris from the wreck. Brian blinked until he could finally tell what he was seeing. He recognised Dom's face and asked, "Did I win?" "Yeah, you won alright," Dom said, "but you're gonna owe somebody a ten-second car." Brian managed to laugh. The sirens off in the distance got closer and Brian, still confused, asked what happened. Dom thought for a moment. "I'll tell you all about it when I see you again."


End file.
